sightline: January 21st, 2008 at 8:44 pm

and porsche, too. after a lifetime spent driving a 356, a 911, a boxster and now a cayman, i finally got my hands on a cayenne a couple of weeks ago – and while it may have been a pretty nice ‘truck,’ it was, in my opinion, still a ‘truck.’

and i realize its made all sorts of good things possible for porsche in the short-term, but it has also most-definitely diluted the brand – at least so far as my perceptions are concerned.

porsches used to small, nimble, highly-efficient and certainly effective sportscars [and race cars with similar attributes]. but now, with the inclusion of their large and excessively luxurious cayennes, they have become something else. and soon, with the arrival of the panamera, they will become something else again.

I’m aware that size wise it makes sense to put the CTS against the 5-Series, but in terms of performance, price, and most importantly of all, real world competition, the CTS is most DEFINITELY a 3-Series competitor, w/ the STS taking on the 5-Series. That is to say, people looking at an A6, a 5-Series, and an E-Class, if turning to check out Cadillac, would inspect an STS, not a CTS, as it isn’t the equivalent in terms of price, performance, or anything else other than size.

Cadillac needs to revamp the STS as the new CTS basically switches shit up by being a better car.

the 2008 BMW 335 sedan is: 178.2″ long, 71.5″ wide and 3594 lbs.

the 2008 Cadillac CTS sedan is: 191.6″ long, 72.5″ wide and 3861 lbs.

the 2008 BMW 550 sedan is: 191.1″ long, 72.7″ wide, and 3946 lbs.

the 2008 Cadillac STS sedan is: 196.7″ long, 72.6″ wide, and 3995 lbs.

the 2008 BMW 750i sedan is: 198.4″ long, 74.9″ wide and 4486 lbs.

so as far as size the CTS is BMW 5 series fighter, but for a lot cheaper and with a lot less power.

the STS is stuck half way between the 5 series and the 7 series.

Your 1718 of 24 Jan ought to be a separate editorial all of its own.

STS = 5-Series competitor.

No one can exclusively own “safest” or “most advanced” in automobiles. Mercedes and Volvo both claim the former, and BMW, Audi and Mercedes all make bloated claims for the latter. In the average consumer’s mind there is now even a brand emotion attached to German, Japanese, Korean, Italian, British and American in automobiles that complicates the brands’ ability to venture outside that unintentional structure even if they wanted to. It will be very difficult for any American manufacturer to build brand perception of premier reliability now owned by “Japanese.” Difficult for Japanese manufacturers to drive brand perception on performance now owned by the Germans. Difficult for the Germans to create brand perception for flair now owned by the Italians, and so forth. But to have any chance of maneuvering out of these cultural straight-jackets, clarity of defining existential emotion for a given brand is paramount.

Mercedes’ emotion is success. BMW’s emotion is driver involvement. Maserati’s emotions are beauty and passion. Lexus’ are restrained, responsible luxury and lack of worry. Cadillac’s emotion has to be drama. The living large mentality that defines American optimism has to infuse every Cadillac, but this is not strictly a size dictate. To support this, Cadillacs must be visually dramatic, the most comfortable luxury cars for extended travel, technically advanced not for the singularities of the Germans’ performance bent but for the total balance of performance, comfort, usability, technology integration, safety. These cars must be supremely competent but also serene in motion. Cadillacs designed to this rubric can be desired in big countries like China, Russia, India, Australia, Canada, the US of course, Saudi Arabia. These are places that, like the US did, have to build large road networks quickly. They are not going to have the handcrafted, elf-sanded roads of Germany, nor the Swiss Alps in their transit path to entertain them. German cars will not be the masters of luxury in these markets, though they could create perception they are. There’s a reason the cars that set handling standards originate within a couple hundred miles of the Alps, but why none of them are really comfortable for extended travel and why all but the Italians lack any sense of heart-stopping beauty.

The XLR/XLR-V has the visual drama and the superior technology integration with good execution on balance of factors, but it’s a first gen car developed with financial caution on an existing sports car platform and so hasn’t evolved to its rightful point of comfort and serenity yet. However, it makes the right impression *right now*. STS feels like a Cadillac, especially STS-V, but is short of the visual drama and the interior opulence needed to fully support the brand emotion. The new CTS, being a second-generation iteration of Art & Science, comes closest to supporting the total brand emotion for Cadillac and continuing refinement and year-over-year continuous improvement can push it to the forefront. Its guideposts now must be quickly applied to its stablemates. XLR is not a sports car. Corvette is for that. XLR is a sporting GT with a retractable hardtop. It needs a slight platform enlargement or re-engineering of the hardtop to carve out more passenger space, and of course people will expect interior upgrades to beyond CTS execution. CTS Coupe should be built for mouth-watering desirability, not for price accessibility. STS can undergo the CTS evolution and meet the large car requirement all by itself. SRX has CTS as its lighthouse. So what about trucks? The Escalade can carry Cadillac’s central emotion of drama and the current vehicle is a vast upgrade over its predecessor in ability to do this. But it’s too primitive. It should have IRS, perhaps lightweight material wheels to reduce unsprung weight, more cues to separate it from GMC. Sacrifice some mule capabilities in favor of luxury. The work crowd can buy a perfectly nice GMC. Give the Escalade an engine exclusive to Cadillac. The EXT needs the same refinements plus a little more visual drama and a far less awkward bed cover. Dump the goofy flying buttresses outback. Cadillacs should have pushbutton or telepathic functionality for the pedestrian bits of a prestige 4 place pickup engineered for occasional utility, if they have it at all.

On balance, if I were starting from scratch with Cadillac, I’d not opt to build a pickup and maybe not even the SUV. But both were launched at a time when an overriding emotional logic for Cadillac was not present. The brand was grappling for traction and found it in the Escalade which has since become iconic, earning its place in the Cadillac firmament as the brand emotion becomes succinct. The EXT hasn’t won the Escalade’s iconic role so it is expendable, but I do agree that it can be made “Cadillac-consistent” for the real estate developer demo, as long as such a niche rationale exists.

America is an idea even more than the country that is the United States. There are “Americans” all over the world who may never opt to live here, but they will respond to the cultural cues that define the brash, declarative, go-for-it American culture. It’s entirely appropriate for Cadillac to debut GM’s greenest technologies. But it cannot nor should not ever be a brand that can sell a homely, cramped car just because weenies who have never been in a mouse-fur, rubber-matted, rattling 5 series cab in Europe remain convinced the ugly can in front of them is an “ultimate driving machine.” Nor should Cadillac build a “green” car with no advantages. No. Cadillacs must wear their emotion and meet the promise of that visual drama once the driver and passenger climb inside. How they adapt to efficiency and resource regulations is relevant but not compelling. Without drama, the car — however good — is always going to be something else. Sharpening Cadillac will bring clarity to Buick and Pontiac, too.

Phil

I am suprised to like this car as much as i do. It even gets OK milage, about 18 mpg average. The engine is amazing. I wish this car fit into my life, i would buy one immediately. Its supercheap as a 1 or 2 year old used car too, because they are unpopular. I live in the city, so I need a smallllll car so i can park it – but i will tell ya, i’d love these wheels full time.

It would make a stunning convertable.

EXT – pimped-out Avalanche

Cars – you got me there, years ago I had an Impala which was RWD, forgot they are FWD today.

Still, I just see Cadillac as the same old GM crap. In fact, not long ago, a friend’s relative showed up at a party with a new CTS. I sat inside and really, it just had that same old el-cheapo Chevy look to it… Step on the gas to get that really cool fart-can sound, etc…

Oh well…

I laughed out loud at that one…. these PR guys are such superb BSers that they are hilarious.

JohnB :
January 23rd, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Cars – pimped-out Impalas/whatever…” Pure BS. How many RWD Chevies are there?

Escalade – pimped-out Suburban
EXT – pimped-out Sierra
Cars – pimped-out Impalas/whatever…

I said it earlier in the thread. People in this segment are not all about reliability. They will accept less reliability if they can get the other things they want like style, technology, performance, fit, and finish. After all, they get a current model year BMW loaner when they take their BMW in for service. My wife was once given a cheap BMW loaner car, and that could have been her last BMW. (We noticed that idea got reversed rather quickly).

These people can afford the repairs. If the car does not strand them, they are more happy with these problems than with having a less satisfactory car ALL THE TIME.

I suppose the bottom line is value, and knowing what your customers value.

At the risk of repeating, I think Cadillac customers want a car that has style inside and out. They want it to be comfortable and cushy. The performance they really want is for it to feel powerful (torque). A BMW is about getting there in luxury while enoying the ride. A Cadillac should be about arriving. You should arrive relaxed, and ready to impress.

In my view, since 1996 Cadillac has yet to replace its flagship. The K/G-Body Deville/DTS is a poor substitute.

Origin doesn’t matter. The MINI Cooper waves the Union Jack at every opportunity, but it’s parent company is German, and the earlier MINI’s used a Chrysler engine, while the later ones used a Peugeot engine. But nobody really cares about that because to them, it’s as British as tea time and fish & chips.

Rich buyers may be more ‘educated’ but they’re just as bound to image and perception as anyone else. BMW and Mercedes-Benz have been beset by electrical gremlins for years and most German enthusiats feel that the engineering of todays vehicles are nowhere near the rock-solid engineering of yesterday’s vehicles, yet people continue to flock to them. Everybody like to use CR’s reliability reports when it suits them, so go ahead and see that CR rated the E-Class and 5-series as ‘poor’ and ask yourself why rich educated buyers still flock to these cars when they’re quite unreliable?

I don’t know why every Lexus (except for the RX) is produced in Japan, but if Toyota seems content with designing and assembling the Camry in the US along with going to great lengths to demonstrate how involved they are with the U.S. economy by sticking a huge poster on the back of a Tundra showing assembly plants in 34 states where they either manufacture cars or parts, I’d have to think that they see something in America’s manufacturing capabilities.

Your example is a few years too early.

In 1974, all of the GM divisions were still using their own V-8s for their full-size cars. The build quality of the Cadillacs was also considerably above that of the Chevrolet Bel Air/Impala/Caprice.

The real blurring of divisional lines began with the 1977 downsizing of the full-size cars. With that generation, build quality was pretty much the same for all of the divisions. In 1979, Cadillac began using the Oldsmobile Diesel, and thus was tarred with that disaster.

With the new front-wheel-drive DeVilles and Fleetwoods of late 1984, Cadillac was selling cars that were arguably WORSE in every way than a comparable Chevrolet Caprice. That is when the division really fell off the cliff.

Sport keeps the brand interesting to younger folks. That’s why Lexus is adding the F-Series (also a good idea)…they see that the average age of their buyer is getting higher each year. This keeps the brand fresh.

Robert Farago:
Brands don’t need to be fresh. They need to be focused.

I understand where you are coming from RF but you can’t be so focused in following your brand ID that it takes you right over a cliff. If your clientel is dying of old age you need to do something or you will follow them into extinction.

This was true in the first gen models (I owned a ‘02 Avy at one point), and believe that it is true in the GMT900 models.

Cadillac needs a new flagship, the STS “import-fighter” isnt it, neither is the DTS. Hopefully Cadillac finally understands this and is merging these models.

Particularly depressing is the fact that GM recently canceled development of their next generation DOHC v8 Ultra engines. If you want to be “the standard of the world”, you need something at the very least on par with the competition (Lexus ls 4.6 v8 makes 380hp, while the most powerful Northstar 4.6l makes 320hp). Come to think of it, if Cadillac just took the LS and slapped their badge on it, it would be a fine job.

I think people here have already mentioned the qualities a quintessential Cadillac should have. Really, I love Cadillacs, I plan on buying a used 1970 Eldorado to compliment my GTI in the summer. All i can do is to wait and see i suppose.

Sport keeps the brand interesting to younger folks. That’s why Lexus is adding the F-Series (also a good idea)…they see that the average age of their buyer is getting higher each year. This keeps the brand fresh.

Brands don’t need to be fresh. They need to be focused.

My point exactly. By the eighties, it was cooked.

JKross,

Cadillac should NOT go sport. They will lose if they try it. Their final objective is a robotic limousine. Why take a side trip into sporty?

So I take it that you’d have no problem if Cadillac were to sell a rebadged Malibu to the Europeans instead?

And if Infiniti uses nissan engines, it has nothing to do with rebadge.I It is a common practice. problems start when Cadillac takes German built 3.6 er and attributes it to her own engineering.

You miss my point that as bad as it was for Cadillac to throw a wreath-and-crest on a Cavalier, it is just as bad for Infiniti to put an unmodified econobox engine into one of their luxury models. Origin means nothing, really, unless you’re horrified at the thought of a Bugatti Veyron powered by Volkswagen.

And Accord is barely rebadged, because the acura TL they sell in US is sold as Honda Accord( still modified) in europe, while the european Accord is not sold in USA as Honda, there is a completely different Accord for usa, that shares no sheetmetal with US AcuraTL.

Perhaps you have it confused with the Acura TSX, which is very much an Accord elsewhere in the world.

And they are a step ahead, because their damn engines don`t break and door actuators don`t stop working after 70k.

Is this the tactic that you must resort to now? It’s a really cheap shot and it’s very disappointing that you would go this route.

no matter where you attack japanese cars, it is still goddamned japanese engineered contents. period. manufacturing origin doesn`t matter? then why put an american flag on the last usa -based and made popcorn packs? Every country adopts the manufacturing complexity level according to its abilites and organizational skills.

Manufacturing origin doesn’t matter. If U.S. manufacturing wasn’t up to the capabilities of the rest of the world, I doubt BMW would be churning Z4’s out of their South Carolina factory, and Mercedes-Benz wouldn’t be making ML- and R-Class vehicles from their Alabama plant.

As for Caddy’s identity, why can’t American Sport Luxury be the identity? Hell, if Porsche can get away with selling the Cayenne in big numbers (effectively flipping off their identity by building that thing in the first place), there’s no reason Cadillac can’t. That is unless Rick and Bob stick their %*#$%& in it and screw it up.